We live in apocalyptic times. That is true for us as the human race. And we are each individually a part of that larger apocalypse.                   

Apocalypse is revelation. We are living through an apocalypse of light, individually and together as humankind.

Apocalypse is a time of change in government. Here in the United States, we just had a change in our federal government. But I’m not speaking about a shift from one party to another. Apocalypse is the revelation of a higher form of government in which a higher order of intelligence guides the human world.

I’ve been speaking recently about coming to the mountaintop. That metaphor is used commonly in the world. The spiritual journey is climbing up the mountain. Sounds wonderful. But what happens when you get to the top of the mountain? Apocalypse. Ooh, didn’t expect that!

I’d like to read from “The Hill We Climb,” the inaugural poem by Amanda Gorman. This is from the last portion of it:

This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,
but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked, “How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?” now we assert, “How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?”
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,
our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

We rise to the mountaintop, where we see the larger vista of what is transpiring in this world. From here, we have a 360-degree view. We see the mountainside, the valleys below, and the plains beyond.

The mountaintop is also a place where we ourselves can be seen. We expose ourselves to the heavens and are seen by the celestial realms. The light of truth shines down upon us.

At the mountaintop, all of who and what we are is visible. In essence, we are saying, See me, know me, know my world, every hidden place. We’re no longer hiding down in some ravine, cave, or valley. We are up at the mountaintop where what is heavenly crosses over into the manifest through us as a human being.

At the mountaintop, we deepen our gnosis—our knowing. We allow ourselves to be known and seen, and then we bring that quality of sight into our world.

The connection between sight and governance is fascinating. It even appears in our language. Here in America, we have congressional oversight committees. Inherently we know that when we see and see accurately, we bring light through our sight. And things that could live in the darkness can’t live in the morning—they can’t live when seen. By seeing, we are a witness in the light of day to the natural order of what is. That order is illuminated by the light we bring. And so, activities that people sustain under corrupt governance can no longer be sustained, and in the light of day the governance of truth prevails.

And what about the organizational context? We have supervision—super vision. We use the word as a synonym for management—super vision, believing that when we really see, what is done changes.

Where I live at Sunrise Ranch, we aspire to be the Eye of Providence, seeing all things. Not any one of us alone, but all of us together being the Eye of Providence—one single eye that sees the needs of all people, that sees all the processes of Creation. And as day follows night, when we see with true eyes, stewardship and care come quickly with it. There is the ordering power of truth that naturally takes over in all the processes of Creation. There can be true governance when there is true sight.

We gain true sight when we come to the mountaintop. When we come to the mountaintop, the clouds of consciousness separating us from the light of the heavens are dissipated. But perhaps dissipated is too soft a word. This is an explosive apocalypse! Those clouds are evaporated in what might seems to be a drastic process. Things have seemed drastic in America—violent even. Not because the view from the mountaintop is that they should be violent but because the corruption of America insisted on it coming to that. Where consciousness clouds us from the light of the celestial realm, those clouds must be dispelled, perhaps in a violent thunderstorm.

The joy of it is that after a thunderstorm, the air clears. We feel a new sense of atmosphere and a new sense of our connection to what’s above. There is a new delight and joy. That is the experience of apocalypse. The ordering power of the universe enters us. It brings both direction and loving encompassment. It brings comfort to the human heart. There is unrest as long as humanity tries to wrest government out of the hands of God. That causes unrest, discomfort, and fear because we know it’s unsustainable. Corruption is unsustainable.

And so, at the mountaintop, we feel the comfort of being truly seen. We feel the ordering power of the universe entering us, knowing us, creating order in our heart and intelligence in our mind. True knowing, true wisdom, begins with allowing that knowing to enter us from above. It starts with being seen. And in being seen and known, there is the comfort of true direction, not imposed but simply known.

In the Attunement Service hosted by Sunrise Ranch this past Sunday, we witnessed Alex Bootzin playing the piano. We listened to him evoke the romance and fantasy of the French composer Claude Debussy. And we heard him coax the love for life itself out of a jazz interpretation of “What a Wonderful World.”

What a picture of divine government! We witnessed the living, breathing intelligence of the Creator moving through his human facility, especially his fingers. Not imposed from the outside, just being known. And that knowledge guided the unfolding pattern of Creation. Isn’t that how it is for any of us in a creative activity? Creative order doesn’t come because it’s imposed. It comes because it is simply being known. And if we allow it to direct us in intelligent ways, the great Comforter of truth holds us in that process. Something happens to the identity of a person. In a corrupt government, there is a corrupted sense of self. We have names for that, like ego. When we allow ourselves to be known and seen from above, that higher knowing enters us, and we then live that higher truth. A higher experience of who we are enters us as well. We become the one who knows, without presumption, but as that in our world. We bring supervision—super vision.

I think of Sunrise Ranch, where I have the role of Spiritual Director. If this process took over fully here, I could imagine there would be little need for managers and directors and other kinds of external forms of direction. When intelligence from above enters us individually and then as a community, then we see Sunrise Ranch. We know Sunrise Ranch. We know each other. We know the unfolding processes of Creation, and those processes are loved and stewarded.

And so it is with all the world. For most of us, that state of being together is so remote that we can’t imagine that it could even happen among us in any group of people. And yet, the flip side is this: some part of us knows this already.

My prayer is to be seen and known by you. I want to let you see me for all of who and what I am. I’m not hiding in a valley but standing at the mountaintop where I can be seen by that higher intelligence present in us all. And I want to see and know you for who you are.

As we allow ourselves to be known by the Divine, that higher knowing is in us and we bring it to each other. We see, and we know, and we understand. We allow ourselves to be seen and known and understood—not all at once. This is not knowledge, a noun, but knowing, a verb. We know ourselves and we know each other, and there is the kinship of Being.

I declare that we have each come to know the world in which we live, to see it with super vision. The clouds that hid us from the heavens are dissipating. The sky is clearing. We are experiencing an apocalypse of light.

So, let us go to the mountaintop together. That happens when we are each on our individual journey. Each of us going individually, we find ourselves together at the mountaintop, welcoming apocalypse, with whatever storms may come.

Let us live from that place, that we may be seen and known, that we may see and know each other from that place, and that we may see and know our world with super vision and bring the true governance of the Most High.